Matthew Kellway

[TIFF Kids International Film Festival, May 9th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, Iron Man 3 gets the box office bucks but the students of Bowmore Public School are attracting the critical acclaim.

Nine of the twenty-six Ontario finalists for the TIFF Kids International Film Festival are from Bowmore. Congratulations to: Umer, Delaney, Sean and Maija, Lora, Varina, Safa, Samantha, Mahfuza and Katie, Emma to Jack, Jack and Jason, Julia and Laura, Kayleigh and Allegra, Leanna and Siena, Emily, Willow and Estelle and Amy. I hope they continue to use their talents and refine their craft because if they do, Hollywood had better watch out because a Canadian wave of cinematic talent is coming to wash over it.

For Ms. Jarvis, Ms. Partridge, Mr. Davis, Mr. Sekdorian and Principal Sambrook, as the son of two teachers, I know how hard they work, how much love they share and how much they give of themselves so all of their students find their voices and are encouraged and empowered to share with us their perspective on this world.

My thanks to all.

[Economic Action Plan 2013 Act, No. 1, May 7th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, certainly the budget would be improved and our environment would be much improved if that program still existed.

One of the curious things about that program is that when the Minister of the Environment and the Minister of Natural Resources justified ending that program, they did so by trumpeting its great success and the many jobs it created, so there is no rationale for cancelling that job program.

In fact, it becomes an extremely important program for a city like Toronto. One of the curious things about the city that I live in, because of its particular built form, is that over 60% of our greenhouse gas emissions come from heating and cooling the built environment, so a program like the eco-energy program became a critical part of dealing with climate change and with greenhouse gas emissions in a city like Toronto.

I know my constituents very much regret the decision of the government to cancel that program, not only because of the improvements it brought to their own properties and because of their concern about the environment but also because of the great job potential that the program had.

[Economic Action Plan 2013 Act, No. 1, May 7th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, if the government did its budgeting right, then we could find something right with the budget. However, as it is, what I would suggest to the member, as we have suggested to the government side, is to divide the bill up and stop playing this game of putting everything into an omnibus bill—50 pieces of legislation, new legislation, amendments to legislation—and standing up day after day saying we disagree with it all. It is because it is all piled into one toxic budget bill.

Let us divide it up and then let us be truthful about the facts. Conservatives talk about 950,000 net new jobs; since 2008, immigration in this country has accounted for at least one million new Canadians, so how does the government talk about net new jobs that cannot even keep up with the immigration rate since the recession?

[Economic Action Plan 2013 Act, No. 1, May 7th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I am almost sad to get up. I was enjoying the Conservatives and the Liberals going at it on the issue of economics when they should be embracing each other because they both practice the same austerity economics.

Before I start on the issue of Bill C-60, I do want to wish Marg Reilly a very happy birthday. Marg is a constituent of mine. It is a milestone birthday for her, and she is a person worthy of great celebration. Happy Birthday, Marg.

Today we are talking about Bill C-60, the budget implementation act. It is the final of five days of debate on the matter, owing to another Conservative time allocation motion, which is a new record for such motions. I dare suggest that there will be more such motions. There seems to be some kind of narcotic effect to these time allocation motions for those guys. It also, perhaps, is just the arrogance of power.

In his defence of the Conservative time allocation motion, the Minister of State for Finance described this legislation as “the blueprint of our government's mandate moving forward”. He “felt” that five days was more than enough time to debate the bill. As it turns out, what we have before us is another omnibus bill. It is certainly shorter than its predecessor, but still it involves amendments to nearly 50 pieces of legislation, and even introduces new legislation. That means that on average we have less than one hour of debate for each legislative change or legislative invention included under the bill.

Who would have imagined that those so-called champions of transparency and accountability, these parliamentary reformers who sit on the government side, would have ever stood in this place to justify such a limited level of scrutiny—on budget implementation, no less—for parliamentarians, much less to justify it on the basis of what they felt was appropriate, that those reformers would privilege their feelings over the traditions, institutions and processes of governing and government in Canada? It is most certainly a form of tyranny.

This is not simply an issue of process or principle, as those members like to portray it. This is about a government that is failing to do its best for this country and its citizens, a government that has deliberately set a target below the potential of Canada and its citizens. Never mind excellence, never mind maximization, never mind over-achieving, the Conservative government aspires to under-achievement, to less than what is possible, to less than our potential.

This is the recurring narrative in the April 29 economic and fiscal outlook produced by the Parliamentary Budget Office. I want to quote a bit at length here:

PBO projects real GDP growth in Canada to slow to 1.5 per cent in 2013 and remain below its potential growth rate until 2015. Combined with the sluggish recovery in the global economy, government spending restraint will act as an additional drag on growth and job creation. The projected weakness in growth keeps the economy well below its potential GDP through 2015 and as a result the unemployment rate remains relatively stable, averaging 7.3 per cent over 2013 to 2015.

It goes on to talk about employment in Canada being below its potential. That is on page 10, if anybody wants to reference that. It say that employment and “average weekly hours” for Canadian workers are below potential. That is on page 11. “Labour productivity” is below, which is, again, on page 11. Gross domestic product is “below potential”, on page 11 again.

How is all of this happening? Quite curiously, it is happening by design. As the economic and fiscal outlook says, “Over the period 2013 to 2017, PBO estimates that the net impact of [economic action plan] 2013 measures and revisions to spending levels on real GDP and employment is contractionary”. It is 67,000 jobs worth of contractionary, according to the report, which is a .57% reduction in GDP.

The PBO explains that does not mean that employment levels will be 67,000 jobs shy of where we are today. That is fair enough. The report explains it in these terms:

Rather, it means that, in the absence of these measures and revisions to spending levels, projected employment would be higher by 67,000 jobs, all else being equal.

The action in the government's economic action plan is:

...pushing the economy further away from its potential GDP and delaying the economic recovery.

This is worthy of the House's time for extensive debate. I want to know, and Canadians will want to know, why the deliberate path of action chosen by of the current government is to push the economy further away from its potential.

What is particularly perplexing is that the budget comes in the context of a Canada that is already so far shy of its potential.

The government has presided over a $67 billion trade deficit that is expected to worsen in the year ahead. That is thousands of jobs and billions of dollars leaving this country and going overseas to enrich others.

There are still almost 1.4 million Canadians out of work. There are 240,000 more young people unemployed today than before the recession.

Closer to my home, in Toronto, in my riding of Beaches—East York, I would note a recent report by the United Way and McMaster University showing that nearly 50% of jobs in southwestern Ontario are precarious jobs. A recent report by the Metcalf Foundation shows that the number of working poor is growing in the greater Toronto area. Reports by the Cities Centre at the University of Toronto show the continuing income polarization in our cities, particularly in Toronto, and extrapolate current trends to show a city with a completely hollowed-out middle class.

To be fair, this trend has carried through successive Liberal and Conservative governments, so we cannot blame it all on the guys on the other side.

The only employment numbers growing by a significant measure are for temporary foreign workers, spurred on by the government's inducement of paying significantly lower wages than for Canadian workers.

It is in this context that the government sees it wise to hit the brakes on the economy to constrain economic growth.

This is a set of circumstances that calls for a different kind of action, action that would put Canadians and Canadian cities, which are after all the engines of economic growth in a modern economy, to work—to begin at long last to undo the constraints on our economy, to realize the potential of our country and to make a more equally shared prosperity a goal for this country.

Let us look for a moment at the issue of infrastructure. Here is an economic opportunity that the government has failed to grasp.

By many accounts, the infrastructure deficit in this country is well north of $150 billion, and it continues to grow. We need to see this problem addressed, and soon. “A penny now or a dollar later”, as the 2012 Canadian Infrastructure Report Card puts it, meaning the cost of delaying needed repairs could cost us vastly larger sums down the road, yet over the next four years, federal infrastructure funding will be $4.7 billion lower than it was last year, despite some creative advertising by the Conservative government.

This so-called new infrastructure funding announced in budget 2013 includes funding from older, delayed projects. There is $6 billion worth announced in this new economic action plan that is masquerading as new money when it is actually existing funds that had been committed back in 2007.

This is a budget that would provide no relief for urban congestion in Canadian cities. Owing to successive uninterested Liberal and Conservative governments, the public transit system in Toronto has not grown in any meaningful way since 1980.

In conclusion, what the government needs to explain to Canadians is how it dares to occupy those benches over there when it puts forward a plan that would shrink this country rather than grow it, when it puts forward a plan that would take jobs from Canadians rather than create jobs for them, when it aspires to less than what we are capable of as a country.

How does the government explain that to the youth of this country who have their futures in front of them? How does it explain it to the seniors of this country, who left what they had built up in our hands not so that we could take it down, but so that we could continue to build upon it?

[Economic Action Plan 2013 Act, No. 1, May 2nd, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Trinity—Spadina for her wonderful speech. She has long been a champion of our cities in this country and a much-needed champion and strong voice for greater urban economies and for fixes for the social issues in our cities.

Her speech comes in the context of a missing $3 billion on the government side, as pointed out by the Auditor General's report. Could the member for Trinity—Spadina comment on how that kind of money could be put to use productively for the cities and the urban economies of our country?

[Bangladesh, April 30th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, with nearly 400 dead in the rubble of a factory and hundreds more still unaccounted for, we mourn along with the people of Bangladesh. Shobar Jonno Valobasha. Lives have been lost for “fresh style, fresh price”, as the slogan goes. That must change.

In the backdrop to this tragedy is a Bangladesh threatened by extremism. For months, political upheaval and violence have been tearing at the fabric of the nation, threatening to pull it apart. Nearly 42 years ago, hundreds of thousands died for the liberation of Bangladesh. The wounds have not yet healed, the pain not yet subsided. I hear it in the music and poetry of those who live in my riding.

However, there is a future open to Bangladesh, one without violence and persecution, one with the rule of law and human rights protected, a secular Bangladesh that can accommodate people of different faiths peacefully. It is my hope that the war for liberation will come to an end at last, but that the Spirit of '71 will continue to guide a new generation to the country that those who died for its liberation could only dream of.

[Strengthening Military Justice in the Defence of Canada Act, April 30th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, it is a shame the member claims that democracy got in the way of their plans, but they have had seven years to date. I did not have the chance, as time did not afford me the opportunity, to talk about the reservations. The member may be correct about 83 of 88 recommendations, but the shortcomings that stand out in this bill are very serious shortcomings. One of them is that this bill essentially gives the Vice Chief of the Defence Staff the authority to direct military police investigations.

The former chair of the Military Police Complaints Commission said the following at committee:

My very brief summary submission is that if Bill C-15 is passed into law in its present form, inclusive of the new subsection 18.5(3) authorizing the VCDS to interfere with police operations and investigations, it will be inconsistent with the principles of police independence as recognized by the Supreme Court of Canada a[s] late as 1999 as underpinning the rule of law...

That is a very serious shortcoming in this bill and it is a shame that the government wants to rush it through without taking the opportunity to make that kind—

[Strengthening Military Justice in the Defence of Canada Act, April 30th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, we have to take the opportunity in the House and in committee to fully express our views on these matters. We stand in the House and listen almost daily to the government profess its support for military personnel. The protestations of support for military personnel need to be put in context and examined fully. This bill is supposed to reflect respect for the military personnel of Canada, yet we have a bill that falls far short of what is required to fully respect the rights of our military personnel and to provide them with a system of justice that is fair and deserving of what all Canadians have.

New Democrats will take this opportunity to support this bill but also to demonstrate to Canadian people what is missing in terms of respect for Canadian military personnel.

[Strengthening Military Justice in the Defence of Canada Act, April 30th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, my friend did not know I was coming. I am sure he would have withheld those comments had he known.

I will be splitting my time with the member for Windsor West.

It is great to talk about Bill C-15 today. My colleagues and I support the bill at third reading.

Members may recall that I spoke in opposition to the bill at second reading. I applaud the great efforts of my colleagues on the defence committee, as have others in the House today, who put forward 22 amendments and five subamendments and made a great effort to change the bill. As has been pointed out today, none of this was successful, but the bill was amended at committee: the Conservatives saw fit to amend their own mistakes, which is always helpful.

That is not to say that we support this legislation wholeheartedly; it is somewhat reluctantly that we do so.

I want to comment on this issue for a moment, because it has been the subject of much debate.

It is a bit tricky, of course, to support a government bill at third reading. We heard the Minister of National Defence waxing philosophical earlier today about not letting perfection get in the way of progress; on the other hand, we heard the Liberal defence critic express his confusion and uncertainty about how and why the NDP could support this legislation. The challenge is more difficult than either of those extremes would suggest.

This is not so much a philosophical matter; it is really a very practical one. Justice systems, as informed as they are by theory and philosophy, have very real, profound and practical implications for those who are subjected to them, and this is obviously the case before us. For reasons that we all seem to agree with, this is about balancing the need for quick and expeditious military justice against the need to keep discipline in the forces, while yet providing fairness for forces members.

Today we are considering a unique military justice system and its need for discipline, but we also need to take into consideration the issue of time. That has to weigh heavily on our considerations about whether to support the bill or not.

For all the talk about their support for the military, the Liberals did nothing with their majority government to amend the act, in spite of having before them the report of a justice who made 88 recommendations. The Conservatives have been in government now for seven long years and have similarly opted to do nothing up to this point.

It is because this legislation has such a long history that we need to consider what we can agree to and what we must agree to in order to make progress and move this legislation forward.

I will not recite the full history. I have no time for that today, but I will give a short summary to illustrate the point.

The bill had its genesis in a 2003 report on the Canadian military justice system by a former chief justice of the Supreme Court, the Right Hon. Antonio Lamer. That report contained 88 recommendations for change and was suggestive of some significant deficiencies in Canada's military justice system.

The bill is also a legislative response to a 2009 report by the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs dealing with these very same matters.

In December 2011 yet another military justice report was presented to the government, this time by a former chief justice of the Ontario Superior Court, the Hon. Patrick LeSage. I would note that the Conservative government sat on that report for a year or so before finally tabling it in June 2012.

To date, only 28 of the recommendations from that original Lamer report of 2003 have actually been implemented, some in the form of legislation, some as regulations, and some as changes in practice.

We have even lost some ground, it needs to be noted. In the previous Parliament, Bill C-41 died on the order paper. That bill included important updates to the National Defence Act that are interestingly absent from the bill we are considering today. The change got moved back upfield, and that is disappointing.

However, I think the length of time that the current government and the previous Liberal government have taken to bring some sense of fairness to the members of our armed forces with respect to the justice system means that we need to consider very seriously what we need to do now, because we do not know when we will get our next opportunity to make change. It is important that we make tangible change to this system so that it is a military justice system worthy of this country and worthy of the commitment that members of the Canadian Armed Forces make to this country.

As frustrating as all of that is, we focus on the progress that is being made. We see some progress, although I would shy away from calling it significant. It comes in the form of greater flexibility, for example, for the sentencing process to more closely parallel the civil criminal justice system. It would provide for additional sentencing options, including absolute discharges, et cetera; it would modify the composition of a court martial panel; it would modify the limitation period applicable to summary trials and would allow an accused person to waive limitation periods; and it would clarify the responsibilities of the Canadian Forces Provost Marshal.

It would also make amendments to the delegation of the powers of the Chief of the Defence Staff as the final authority in the grievance process.

Above all, as tangible as these changes are, one stands out as critically important and most certainly worthy of support. It is an issue that we in the NDP have pushed for many years, including in the previous Parliament, and we actually had made some progress with it in Bill C-41. It is this issue more than any other that tips the balance in favour of supporting this bill, and it has to do with the number of offences that could result in a criminal record.

The NDP, through the long history of the bill, has consistently pushed for a reduction in the number of these offences. With this amendment from Bill C-15 emerging out of committee, it would be the case that about 95% of cases would not attract a criminal record. In addition, those who have been previously convicted of these offences would have their records expunged.

This is an important issue because many of the offences that we have been focusing on do not generally have a civilian equivalent. They are, for example, offences described in section 85 of the act that involve threatening or insulting language or contemptuous behaviour toward a superior officer. Section 86 involves failing to stop someone from deserting, and section 97 deals with drunkenness.

We have long considered it unjust, as have many other experts who have weighed in on this matter, that convictions for those kinds of offences through this kind of summary trial process could result in criminal records that could follow members of the Canadian Armed Forces into their civilian lives.

It is important to note that the summary trial is used to try about 95% of disciplinary cases in the forces. It is this process that is used to effect a balance between the competing interests of discipline and returning a soldier to service. As such, fairness and justice are compromised.

For example, a commanding officer or a designated superior officer could act as the judge, and there would be no legal counsel, no appeal, not even a transcript of the file. We consider it unfair for criminal records to flow from that and follow a soldier into civilian life, so we are pleased to see that amendment and we will be supporting the bill.

[Strengthening Military Justice in the Defence of Canada Act, April 30th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, if there is anything inconsistent, it is actually the Liberals taking any interest in the bill in light of their complete disinterest in amending the military justice system while they had a majority government here in Ottawa. Therefore, it is perfectly consistent to embrace the bit of progress that has been made in the bill.

There are meaningful changes here for the men and women of the Canadian military. I also think it is consistent with that to lament the missed opportunity we have before us to go further and truly demonstrate some respect for the men and women in our military.

We had some experts on these matters make some very serious statements in front of the committee about how far the bill falls short, in their view. We heard about the unconstitutionality. Peter Tinsley, former chair of the Military Police Complaints Commission, said, in February this year, before the committee, that the bill would be inconsistent with the principles of police independence as recognized by the Supreme Court of Canada as late as 1999. I wonder if my friend would like to comment on that.